‘You know, a minute ago I was telling you your job must be the best one in the world. I mean, you were getting to take out three girls for the night. Now it’s only getting better: they’re actually offering to pay for your drinks,’ Suzanne said.

‘Come now, this is a one-off, it’s a once in a lifetime kind of thing. It probably won’t happen again any time soon. It’s not really part of my job.’

‘Ha, come off it, won’t it be the same again tomorrow?’

I didn’t answer that. I couldn’t. Mostly because it was true.

So now it's official. After the ironic end of a permanent vacation, the Gallery has signed me up for what seems to be the best job in town.

Alex Supertramp, Ramblin' boy.

"I just felt so sorry for his mother. How could he do that to her?"

"You can't think like that, Pri" - a man, after all, must be his own self before he is anybody's son.

"Nobody gained anything from it. He didn't die for a cause, he died running away from society. Alex should have accepted that we live in a society."

"Society's not unescapable. It can't be: that's our very last hope."

"But still, he died."

"Maybe, but when he did he was perfectly free."

You see, some men will sail on until the day the seas dry up.

Mochima

'It's a good life man,' Achilles says, swinging in his hammock, through the smoke.

'Sometimes so much shit happens you forget, but when you come to a place like this, it reminds you life is a blessing y'know?'

Simon Bolivar

"What killed him was seeing his dream come true, only to fall apart again." - Miguel.

Toulouse-Lautrec, In the Salon of the Rue des Moulins

As I walk out of the Mayflower, a Frenchman cries out

'Salut!'

and for a second there the look on his face is of such comraderie that I think this old man is going to bro-fist or high-five me. He just walks on, smiling proudly.

Three minutes forty-six seconds earlier, three girls had surrounded me in a dark little lane, right outside the Mayflower. They invite me to come see their bar, and I politely refuse; but my hand is in their hands and I'm being pulled in. Inside, several women of all shapes and sizes sit around looking coy.

I am pushed into a little cubicle and this little lady is explaining the rules to me.

10 Euros and I can choose any one of them and have a dance in the cubicle. It doesn't look or smell like it's been used for dancing in many times. I say

'Thanks, I really just want dinner and a drink,'

and it's about half-true.

'I can come with you for dinner if you like,'

she says.

'Yeah, I'd like that, really would, but I don't think my girlfirend would so much.'

She laughs, somebody steals my hat, somebody's dancing, somebody's trying to pull me back in. I grab the hat and dash out.

This old Frenchman sees me come out of that brothel and smiles like I'm the only tourist he's ever liked.

'Salut!'

the old man cries.

Old Montmartre

In Montmartre, a Rasta sits at a bar next to two spanish girls. He dunks a beer down, sighs in despair and complains about how sad he is that he can't afford designer clothing.

A city within a city

In Saint-Michelle, a young homeless guy sits by the roadside, his hat upside down with a few sprinkled coppers inside. He reads as he smokes a thin cigar and the paper bag at his side droops to reveal the tell-tale golden wrapper bottle-neck of champagne.